Lorax Garden iPhone Game – Rebuild The Truffula Forests!

The Lorax Garden iPhone game is a simulation game that gives kids the opportunity to rebuild the Truffula Forests! Lorax Garden (by Oceanhouse Media) picks up where the classic, The Lorax, children’s storybook by Dr. Seuss left off. Guided by the persistent but lovable Lorax, kids choose and virtually grow their own Truffula trees and flowers. They also have the option to share a picture of their Truffula Forests with family and friends if they like. Kids will enjoy the traditional Dr. Seuss artwork and hearing realistic nature sounds as they go about choosing their seeds, planting, watering, weeding and watching their new plants grow.

To start out in this iPhone app, kids will see and hear the last bit of the original The Lorax storybook. The mysterious Once-ler drops a lone seed out of his boarded up window in hopes that someone will be willing to undo the environmental damage done by corporate greed. And who better to lead kids through this virtual replenishing process than the Lorax who “Speaks for the trees.” Lorax Garden has pleasant sounds of birds chirping and simple animations. Kids choose a location on the map to start replanting their forest and off they go. In this Lorax Garden game, the 2 beginning locations are North Nitch and Weehawken. Each has different goals and complexity of tasks. North Nitch requires kids to grow 3 trees, and flowers if they want. Weehawken requires 5 Trees and some flowers to be planted.

A whimsical and wonky-looking seed machine spits out the Truffula seed color of choice and dumps it into the pot where it starts to grow. Water it and see it sprout to life. Watering turns the parched dirt to a dark, rich color. Plant, water and watch your Truffula tree grow. The art is fun and colorful and mixed with 3D animation. However the animations and interactions are limited to focus attention on the growing process. The animated movement of the flowers and trees make them feel alive, almost like they’re breathing. Occasionally, kids will hear verbal encouragement from the Lorax. He also appears in the written instructions as they play along. The instructions aren’t spoken in this iphone app, so younger kids may not know exactly what to do without a little help.

Children will be instructed to water every few minutes or use “Care hearts” to speed things up. Without any Care hearts the regular watering and growing process can take up to around 25 minutes to simulate. Kids can earn their Care hearts by growing, watering and weeding around their flowers. Kids will choose from a variety of funny-named flower seed packs like: Pelf Puff, Twiddler, and Tuttle. Some of the flowers require more attention to grow than others. Depending on how well they water and weed will determine the number of hearts earned. Children will get more Care hearts as their skills improve.

Kids can choose to grow Truffula trees first, but trying to grow Truffula trees without the help of Care hearts requires patience. Each time your child holds down on the watering can it waters the Truffula tree and it grows a little more. The rain drop shows up on the bar meter (top) and moves to the far right after each watering. From there it slowly inches its way back to the left start point again, but this is at 5 minute intervals, which requires patience. Or Care hearts.

Kids can easily earn the hearts, which is why kids should plant and care for their flowers first. If you prefer, these can be bought in this Kids Game through in-app purchase: $0.99 for 50 or $2.99 for 500. As children plant and take care of their plants, they will see the Truffula Forest changing for the better. This happens each time they plant, nurture and grow another plant to add to the forest. Throughout the reforesting process, kids can choose to share their progress with family and friends in a picture and message through email.

The Lorax Garden, iPhone app, does a nice job of simulating the care and patience required in creating a real growing environment for kids. Lorax Garden is a great kids’ simulation game if you want to help your kids connect with “nature” and learn some responsibility and patience at the same time. If you’d like to try out this iPhone Games app, there are a few promo codes below. We’d love to hear what you and your kids think of The Lorax Garden. Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Lisa Vallez - (Mrs. CrazyMike) is the Co-Founder of CrazyMikesapps.com, as well as the Editor and an Author, among other things. She is also a wife and mother of three teens. Lisa likes to write reviews for apps that appeal to the average everyday family, especially Education, Kids, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Productivity and many other app categories.